Documentary Explores Struggle of New Jersey’s Ramapough Tribe

A gathering of Ramapough, from the film “American Native.”CreditSteven Oritt

By Tammy La Gorce

Aug. 8, 2015

Corey Bobker was an accomplished 30-something adult when he took his first drive into the Ramapo Mountains in 2010. But the 12-year-old version of him still had knots in his stomach.

“When I was a kid growing up, everybody knew you don’t go up into the mountains because you’d get shot,” said Mr. Bobker, producer of the documentary “American Native.” His film explores the struggles of the Ramapough Lenape Nation, a Native American tribe with about 5,000 members, according to its chief, Dwaine C. Perry. The Ramapough live mostly across the Stag Hill region of Mahwah, Ringwood and nearby Hillburn, N.Y.

Mr. Bobker, of Los Angeles, grew up in Livingston. As a child, he attended summer camp in Stanhope, near the Ramapos in Mahwah. He had not gotten close to the mysterious mountain chain again until this anxiety-ridden car trip to visit with the tribe for the first time. “I was definitely worried,” he said. “I thought, Maybe it’s true — maybe they’re going to confront us if we say something the wrong way.”

Mr. Bobker’s traveling partner, Steven Oritt, also from Los Angeles and the director of “American Native,” has a vivid memory of their first visit.

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Dwaine C. Perry, chief of the Ramapough Lenape Nation.CreditFred R. Conrad for The New York Times

“One of the first things the chief said to me was, ‘What are you?’ ” Mr. Oritt said. When Mr. Oritt told Mr. Perry, a Vietnam War veteran and, for the last 10 years, the elected chief of the Ramapough, that he was Jewish, Mr. Perry posed a question: If a few of Mr. Oritt’s ancestors were not 100 percent Jewish, would that make him any less Jewish? Mr. Oritt replied that it would not. “He said, ‘Now you know where my people are coming from,’ ” Mr. Oritt recalled.

Despite the filmmakers’ challenging first encounter with the Ramapough, the result, five years later, is an 84-minute documentary chronicling the tribe’s quest for respect and recognition. Made for $262,000, “American Native” has been shown at several film festivals since last spring and recently won the award for best documentary at the Manchester Film Festival in July. In September, “American Native” will be shown at the Clairidge Cinema, in Montclair and the Warner Theater, in Ridgewood.

Mr. Bobker said the filmmakers spent close to a year convincing Ramapough leaders, particularly Mr. Perry, that a documentary would give them “a voice to tell people who they are,” he said.

Mr. Perry questioned their sincerity. “I told them, ‘Yeah, sure, I’ve heard that before,’ ” he said recently, from within a still-under-construction house of worship on a 13-acre parcel of land in Mahwah owned by the tribe. His skepticism stemmed from being disappointed by past articles in Weird NJ, The New Yorker and other publications, as well as the tribe’s portrayal in a 2013 movie, “Out of the Furnace,” which provoked a small faction of Ramapoughs to sue for $50 million, claiming defamation. The film depicted them as “scumbags and inbreds,” Mr. Perry said. The lawsuit was unsuccessful.

Folklore surrounding the Ramapough, including the stories that caused Mr. Bobker to think twice about leaving his camp bunk in his youth, has inspired others in entertainment. “The Red Road,” a recent series on Sundance TV, was based on the tribe and concerned tensions between its people and the surrounding community.

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Steven Oritt, its director.CreditFred R. Conrad for The New York Times

Though the television show was fictional, the tensions are real. Mr. Perry said “bigotry and good-old-boy Southern-style politics” had prevented the Ramapough from obtaining permits to complete the house of worship in Mahwah.

The heritage of the Ramapough is tangled in rumor and myth. Theories about their multiracial ancestry have centered around freed black slaves, Dutch settlers and the Lenape Delaware Indians, who fled to the mountains in the late 17th century to escape Dutch and English settlers. New York and New Jersey recognized the tribe in 1980 as the Ramapough Lenape Nation. When Mr. Perry finally agreed to the documentary, it was in an effort, he said, to “try once again to let the truth come out, to let people know the bigger story is about the haves and the have-nots, which has always been the story of the native peoples of this land.”

“American Native” tracks multiple generations. Cameras follow a young Ramapough, Devynn Mann, through the halls of West Milford High School, where she talks with a teacher about “Jackson Whites,” a local term and racial slur referring to the Ramapough.

Mr. Perry, 67, is shown in Trenton, attending a hearing about a bill to bolster state recognition and encountering concerns that if it were granted, the Ramapough would consider opening a casino. “We don’t have any interest in a casino,” he said. The bill, still pending during shooting, eventually passed the General Assembly but never made it to the Senate floor.

The film also closely follows a bid for recognition at the federal level, initiated by the Ramapough in 1978. If granted, it would provide benefits and subsidies that would help stem what Mr. Perry called the “fiscal attrition” of the Ramapough. “Taxes go up in this area and our people have to move,” he said. “That happens a lot.”

Although they said they do not have an agenda, the filmmakers would like to see the tribe win federal recognition, and they hope “American Native” opens a dialogue similar to the one posed by Mr. Perry five years ago about Mr. Oritt’s Jewish heritage, Mr. Oritt said. “Selfishly speaking, I want the film to get as much exposure as it can,” he said. “But I also hope it gets people to dig a little deeper when they’re thinking about issues of race and identity.”

Screenings of “American Native” will take place at the Clairidge Cinema in Montclair on Sept. 16 at 7:30 p.m. and at the Warner Theater in Ridgewood on Sept. 17 at 7:30 p.m. For more information: americannative-themovie.com. To learn about other screenings: http://gathr.us/films/american-native.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page NJ9 of the New York edition with the headline: Myth and Reality in the Ramapough Nation. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe